The evolution of the veena can be studied under different categories…
1) The varieties of veenas mentioned in sacred literatures.
2) The number of parts and their dimensions
3) The shape of the resonators
4) The number and kind of frets
5) The systems of tuning
6) The purposes for which the veenas were used.
The veena went through a very extensive period of evolution and it can be summed up in seven main stages.
First there was the Harp stage. When the primitive man was hunting with his bow and arrow, heard the sound emerging from the string of the bow and was fascinated by it. This fascination lead to the creation of the musical bow by tying strings of different lengths to the same bow that produced different sounds when plucked and became the Harp. But unlike the Western harp, the Indian one had no front pillar.
Then came the harp with a resonator where a gourd was fixed to the bow to amplify the sound.
Then came the tuning pegs. The strings were tied to the pegs on one end and to the bow on the other end that made it possible for the player to increase or decrease the tension of the strings by turning the pegs. Then the idea of pressing the string at various places to produce different sound came and the Lute emerged.
Then around the 8th century the first veena with two large gourds emerged and it can be seen in the painting in Ellora caves.
The fifth stage of the evolutionary process was the discovery of veenas with plain fingerboard without frets and were played with a bow or by plucking. These veenas are called Nissari Veena. These can be seen in paintings in Ajantha caves.
The next stage was the veenas with frets for the left half of the fingerboard. These were called the Saari Veena and can be seen in South India’s Halebid and Belur sculptures.
Then came the modern veena, the one that is used widely today. This is the veena with 24 fixed frets and a Meru (the first fret to produce the first note Sa). This was attributed to Govinda Dikshitar, the minister to the ruler of Tanjore (a city in South India that is known as the musical seat of Southern India), Raghunatha Nayak and for that reason this veena is also called the Tanjore Veena. This allows the player to play two octaves on a single string.
The Tanjore veenas have two major varieties, the Ekanta or veenas carved out of single piece of wood and the ottu or veenas that are made from three pieces and joined together. These veenas are made out of wood from a tropical tree called the Jack Fruit tree. The reasons for this choice of wood are the abundant availability and their resistance to termites. Veenas are also made in Mysore, Trivandrum and Andhra Pradesh in South India. In Mysore and Trivandrum Rose wood is used to make veenas.
Recent electrical detachable version has, one support containing shruthi box, another support (instead of wooden hemisphere) containing an amplifier system connected to a pickup microphone, and the 24 frets are fitted with nuts & bolts, to brass rails on the “dandi”, for easier mela adjustments and maintenance as the wax requires frequent replacements, by experts at a very high cost. This is more convenient for the artist to monitor the volume of sound during veena recital. This can be directly connected to the amplifier system without inconvenient microphones.
Thus we see that that the structure and form of the instrument keeps evolving and changing over the ages.
saraswathiveena 